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 |  A running blog on a real newbies adventures with the WDC website |
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I became a newbie writer just starting to learn the tools of the trade. Silly me thinking, I could just jump right in, and start swimming, with what I remember of my six grade English. After all what use did a professional computer repair person need of grammar, to fill in blanks, dot “I’s”, or cross his “T’s” with. I was forced into early retirement. Because of Agent Orange encounters from Vietnam, and a bad hernia repair. You cannot learn anything being a mugwump. What is a mugwump you say? It is a person sitting on a fence; with their mug on one side of the fence, and their wump on the other side. One day I received this interesting email from the Newbie Academy Group. They recommend I engage in contest activities. I thought to myself why not! I went to the contest list and found the writer’s cramp contest. At the prompt: here's a new restaurant in town with an interesting theme. What's the theme, how is it expressed, and how's the food? I read this and get all excited. I started thinking of all the Chief Gordon Ramsey shows I had watch with my wife. Out of nowhere pops a memory of a silly menu I had in my funny joke collection. It was a road kill menu for Uncle Roberts fine cuisine dinning. I decided to use my hillbilly name. I and my wife had a moment in our newly married life, when we were teasing a neighbor friend. We started calling our redneck friend Deny-Bob. He called us JoVonna-Bob and Brett-Bob. I decided to call my contest entry “Brett-Bob’s Road Kill Express” to me the whole idea was a joke and after all what a great thing to write about. To me the trick was to keep it rated ‘E’ as this was a requirement of the contest. I had in my mind decided to keep it as a fake road kill diner they would serve real food as fake road kill using the out of season as the excuse to use their specialty dishes for them. When I wrote it as with all my writing I am becoming world famous for run-ons and miss spelling. Part of the problem is MSoffice I blame its terrible spell checker, and the horrible grammar checker, since it cannot even do second grade error correction. Like I told one of the Newbie Academy Ladies I’m a senior citizen writing as a first grader. And even a first grader has trouble reading my work let alone the poor teacher. Beside whom else can I blame? None of us want to point that finger at ourselves. We might get ashamed and do something about it. One of the funnier parts to my story is I didn’t read it had a thousand word limit. I just assumed that they wanted whatever you could produce in a short time. Just like Nanowrimo. It had a twenty four hour dead line. I figured you didn’t need to worry, if it was a rough draft, or a finished work. This was probably my misreading of the contest rules. I’m betting the judge expects to judge finished works by more experienced authors other than newbies. Basically I’m trying to say, I set myself up for failure. But the best part of the story, and funniest is the judge’s comment: “You met that goal with an interesting piece. However, since I'm a vegetarian, it was unhappily a bit unappetizing in both humor and description. Sigh.” I know I thrive on rejection. But my very first contest. When I am trying to fit in, and receive that comment. It was about the funniest thing to happen to me. Being a new writer I understand not everything I write is golden or is going to make me incredibly rich either. I did install the sense of shame. I went visiting my email and asked the kind judge for help with run-ons. She took pity on me and provided a link to myenglishteacher.net. She also recommended a class from WDC’s own recommended school. She also recommended asking for help in my groups forums. The truth is I really don’t see even the kindest writer here, having the time to teach me sixth grade again. Then I realized I don’t need the whole lessen. I just need to learn to recognize what I do in my writing, and fix that issue. As I write I can auto correct instead or totally relearning English. So I went to some of the forums in the Newbie Academy Group. Since I have no life anymore I sometimes expect the same of everyone else. But the sad truth is it’s the week end, and all the nice people are out being nice people. I am going to have to wait until Monday to get my help. My contest entry received eight reviews; of the eight, two actually showed me areas to improve it, and of course one judge’s review. I think the poor lady felt sorry for me and I got the newbie prize of 250 gp with the review or it won third place. I in my vanity like the third place idea; the truth is I’m just guessing. I hope I haven’t offended any one with this story. It is another attempt at a funny story. I don’t have any hard feelings with the judge she was honest, truthful, and even extremely helpful. Some points of interest; only one person didn’t find it funny, the judge. Only the judge and one retired teacher gave me a link. They both gave me really helpful reviews with writing style help. I am still holding on to three reviews of the eight. I still get a laugh every time I read the third email. I just love her closing line: This story is fun, and I still have a silly smirk on my face. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** I'm building at "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  Great place to read.I'm docked at "Blog Harbor from The Talent Pond"
, a safe port for bloggers to connect. |
| I have enjoyed a merry Christmas and I'm looking for a happy sober new year. I got my goals all set I'm going to get my two novels polished up and published this year.I have nine chapters edited and uploaded to the site now. I hope to increase that number shortly tomorrow. For those who are interested it is "A Tale of Worlds, The 'Fish'." I have 28 more to edit. I am finding I spend more time correcting the uploaded file from office into the static item. Then I spend correcting my run-on and punctuation. I have been playing in my blog, doing e-mail, even did one review, and I keep hearing this strange noise from my monitor. It has this really strange grunting sound. Finally I get worried it might have something going bad in it. So I clear off my work space so I can pull it out and work on it. And what to my wondering eyes does appeared but an old female pure gray kitty cat snoring. I never felt so relieved in my life that all I have to do is ignore my "snoring" monitor. I pried and tried. I looked far and wide. Alas no bad grammar, Could this Grammar Nazi find! (Please excuse my poor attempt at humor but it is true!) As you can see it has been an interesting week first my favorite monitor snores and I just have to write a poem (my first ever) for reviewing. I try and defend a lost cause about ratings that I cannot win. I was a wild week but in the end I feel so much more renewed over it. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| The other day out of the blue after reading all about e-books being deleted due to gray area wording in the titles from the newsletter for publishing. I get notification that one of my stories, because it has kill in the heading is being rated ASR. I don’t know about you but at the time I felt my whole world had been shattered here it was my funny story about a road kill cafe is rated ASR due to the title has the word kill in it! The fight was on! I promptly went to the message base and pleaded my case I thought I brought up some good points as to why now days most children are used to the word kill at age 8. As you can guess I lost the battle the Story Master was kind about it. But since he has real legal obligations he has to stand firm and stick to his guns on the rating system. I was e-mail chatting with Patrick that night so I told him I feared I would lose my battle and he agreed with me. He also pointed out that over 90 percent of this website of writers is all over thirteen years of age. That having my writing appeal to the majority of the website wasn’t a bad idea. The Rating System Nazi was actually doing me a favor. This little battle taught this old dragon a very valuable lesson. Writers know your market! I love to write about murder, fantasy battles, space wars, and starship battles. Now E rated for these items means children. My writing is for young adult to elderly. So in my newbie attempt to keep people happy, I was writing only for the children’s section according to the ASR. The truth is no, I wasn’t writing for children. I was not using the ASR correctly. With what the Story Master told me in his e-mail and what Patrick told me. I gained this new understanding of the system. I now realize you can use the rating system to attract people to read your material by setting the rating above E. Sorry I had such a ‘duh’ moment there. It all boils down to the fact I had been hurting myself by not realizing my market. We all can benefit by understanding who our readers are, and using the rating system for our market. The other valuable lesson I learned was. Watch out what you actually put in your titles and descriptions. The Word Nazi search engine will get you! It doesn’t matter the content of the written story or poem it will still force you to change your rating due to the wordage you use in your titles and public descriptions. We as reviewers need to point these mistakes out to the newbies we review. This way they don’t get upset and have a forum battle they cannot win with the nice people running the site. Also in your reviews if you do as Patrick taught me know your market. Explaining why they need to change it from E to 13+ will make a lot more sense. Since it is the mark of a professional, they always know their market! ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| No More Zero Days" Which involves four simple rules: Rule #1: No More Zero Days A "zero day" is a day that you do nothing toward your current goals. To complete this task, you don't need to write for a specific amount of time or write a certain number of words. To do this, you need to simply not have a "zero day." Do something, anything. You can write one word or one sentence, because one is greater than zero! Rule #2: Be Grateful to the Three You's. There is a past you, a present you, and a future you. Thank your past self for getting you where you are, and do things that will help the future you. Sometimes you've got to ignore the present you that's coming up with excuses. Tell the present you that you're doing it for the future you! Rule #3: Forgive Yourself. Had a zero day? Forgive yourself and move on! Prolonged feelings of disappointment and guilt aren't helping you move forward. Rule #4: Exercise and Books. Keep your mind and body healthy! The suggestion in the concept is to read self-help books, but I honestly think reading any book that motivates you, that pumps you up, that makes you think or inspires you is good. Reading is very, very important to mental health. That's it! Sounds simple, right? (The concept was created, as far as I know, by a reddit user. I won't link it because it has some 18+ language in it, but if you search "No More Zero Days," you'll find it pretty quickly.) I borrowed this piece from the contest and activities news letter because it teaches us how not to set our selves up for failure and as I am beginning to see I need more "Power of Positive Thinking" in my life! |
You know PatrickB  pointed out: "Now, pay special attention to the difference between 'what you hope to accomplish' and 'what you want to work on.' The former is a goal, while the latter is a course." "I want to work on my comma placement and understanding how to stop doing run-on." "I want to continue working on my novel "A Tale of Worlds, The 'Fish' ." "I want to do a better job of showing instead of telling in my fiction / fantasy writing." "I want to make time to learn better reviewing of poetry. I will do this by taking the PDG's Poetry Class." "I want to write a poem and enter it in a contest." "I want to work on my grammar" [be more specific] "I want to get my novel published" [Don't we all? What novel, published where, why?] "I want to make time to review more" [Review what? Why?] "I want to write a sonnet" [Why? For what purpose?]From the examples I wrote my own set of courses to follow and posted them up above. I remember the big deal I used to make when I followed the new year goal setting. Until one year it dawned on me that all I was doing was setting myself up for failure. From that day I made a list and out of my wants and desires I chose just one goal to resolve. After Patrick's article in his Groups Newsletter "The Art of Criticism." I am changing my course, and now doing courses instead of goals. Why keep setting myself up for failure? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Dear blog today as I look over my weekly adventure here. I discovered I wrote two contest entries, “I Stand Alone” and “Romance and Rebellion.” Both are a work in progress. My campfire partner did a fast edit on the 2000 word entry “I Stand Alone.” A nice power reviewer reviewed the 1000 word romantic entry that was still my work in progress, “Romance and Rebellion.” You know it’s all good. I really like getting free reviews on my work in progress it really is a nice touch. It made editing so much easier. I knew where all the mistakes were. I know I will not see one on that 2000 word entry. I have edited it already for all the most notable ones it is now in second draft and still a work in progress until Dec 31, 2013. I do know the reason why as well. Who really wants to review a 2000 word entry? Even I don’t want to unless it is a favor or a trade. As I was working on it I had a lot of fun with it. I would like to share some of the creativeness behind it. We were given this picture of a guy stand on a 30 foot chunk of rock looking out over something. I decided hey if I was in my universe. That I have been writing about in my books. What would I have seen especially if I was one of the very last ones left alive? I would have seen a huge battlefield with death and destruction with debris raining down from the sky. Now that I had the picture in my mind, the challenge was to tell the story, in 2000 words or less. I knew I had to crank it out fast if I wanted to keep my title as well. So I took two hours and did around 30 errors give or take and slapped it into an entry and posted it in the forum. Now I had all that locked down. I took a break because I needed to get my mind away from it. After a few hours I came back and edited it and caught even more errors with it. I worked my way through it and fixed them all that I could find. I intend to go back to it next week and double check it for mistakes with the edit lol. A writers mind at work we still make mistakes with our edits. I finally kicked my backside into a gear and started editing my books I still have in first draft. All the story review I have done have paid off big time. I actually thing that first chapter is ready to be reviewed for once as a profession piece. However even I know it still needs work. It is just that it is very readable funny and I hope entertaining. But unless you review novels I wouldn’t try and review it. You would need my timeline, plot outline, and character descriptions to truly review it. Who wants to review 4,385 words? But for a fun quick read I think it would be decent. I will be editing all 38 chapters of it during this holiday season because I want to get it into print in 2014. I plan on spending 60k GPs to Pencil to get them to do a whole book review. Once I get all of my chapters edited and readable. Now I have it on good authority that the FBI is concerned about all the fake healthcare centers doing identity theft. They recommend you only use the official government site that is broken. |
| Crime Scene A campfire by GroovyStella and The Run-on King GroovyStella turn one: "What's wrong with Spencer Mommy?" Abigail asked but ran from the room after taking one look in her eyes. “Abby! What’s wrong?” Christian asked softly. “Did she hit you again? Its okay I won’t tell on you! I wish I could help Spencer.” Abby nodded no. Christian said, “Why is he crying? He should listen to us and stop upsetting mommy. I hope daddy gets here soon.” "I love you Spencer," she whispered in his ear as she cuddled him. Her tears flowed as she placed his body under the water in the bathtub. She used more strength than she thought she would have to. Brett Turn one: When Abby and Christian noticed the baby was quiet. Abby spoke, “Christian lets go see if mommy is better now. I am hungry and I want to know everything is all right.” Abby slowly crawled out from under her bed. She heard small noises from the bathroom, but went into the kitchen looking for a glass of water, and to wait for mommy to finish changing the baby’s diaper. "Abby can you come in here for a minute?" Tina called. "I don't know if I can do this." She whispered. GroovyStella’s Turn Two: A tear found its way down her cheek when Abby walked into the bathroom. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Mommy is going to help you with your bath tonight, so I need you to come in and get undressed." As Abby climbed into the tub, Tina stroked her hair and whispered, "I love you sweet girl." With that she grabbed Abby and tried to put her under, but Abby fought so hard that Tina was losing control. "Mommy, what are you doing? Please don't Mommy, please!" Her little girl cried. Brett’s Turn Two: Tina held Abby still and cried, "I'm sorry Abby." As she slammed Abby’s tiny soft brown hair covered head against the side of the tub. Christian heard Abby’s scream. He was so scared all he could do was freeze. The house went silent after that. Christian heard mommy say, “It’s alright now Abby, and you no longer have to cry or be afraid anymore.” Tina called out, “Christian where are you honey?” Christian cried out softly as the fear froze him again! He knew he had to run to leave the house but he just couldn’t move. Mommy came into the room and gently picked him up and placed him on Abby’s bed. GroovyStella’s Turn Three: She gently stroked his soft blond hair. The look on her face kept his fear in place. "You know I love you, don't you?" She asked holding him in her lap. "And I'll always do what's best for you and your brother and sister. Do you trust me Christian?" He slowly nodded his head and asked, "Where is Spencer and Abby?" “They're in my room waiting for Daddy. It's time to get you ready to go." She was thinking how much he looked like his father. His face was so sweet and innocent. She pulled him close and held him tight. Brett’s Turn Three: "Mommy?" Christian spoke with tears on his face. "Shh baby, it's okay. Mommy's sorry. Christian let out a scream when the knife pierced his stomach. She felt her oldest child go limp and as she stood to carry his body to the bed to lay him down next to his sister, she stopped, laid him on his bed, and pierced his throat below the ear and didn't stop until she reached the other ear. GroovyStella’s Turn Four: Tina got Christian's blanket, wrapped him in it, and laid him next to his sister. She made her way back to the bathroom to clean her son's blood from her hands when the phone rings. Tina quickly washed her hands and ran to the phone. She had reservations, who could be calling her especially now? She built up her courage again, and quickly picked it up. She fumbled with it a few times and finally held it steady as she answered, “Hello?” A strong male voice answered, This Sergeant Hanson with the State Patrol. I have some bad news Mrs. Hudson. I regret to inform you that your husband has died in a car accident on the way home today. Do you have a preference where the body is sent? We recommend Johnsons funeral parlor if you don’t have any choice. Tina had no answer to come back all she could think of was Daniel was dead! The voice in her mind snapped, answer him fool or you’ll give it all away! Brett’s Turn Four: Tina found her voice and asked, “Are you sure it is Daniel?” Officer Hanson answered, “Yes mam we are.” Tina spoke in a sobbing shaking voice, “Officer Hanson, Johnsons will do just fa fa fine.” Tina started sobbing uncontrollably now. Officer Hanson spoke, “I’ll let you go now if you need any help or have any questions you can always reach me at the State Highway Patrol number listed in the phone book mam.” GroovyStella’s Turn Five: After saying that, he hung up something just didn’t feel right about the way she was crying hysterically. He ordered a patrol car to her house. When the officers arrived there was no answer to the knock or to the doorbell. He tried the door it wasn’t locked. Officer Sperry and his partner walked in calling out for Tina. There was no answer, it was quiet. They call in and received orders to search the house since it was unlocked. Officer Sperry found her and the children in the master bedroom. Tina was dead with a knife through her neck. He backed out of the room and called into dispatch. Brett’s Turn Five: Both officers waited downstairs for the local police to arrive as well as the crime scene investigators. Ronald Harry the detective in charge showed up first. He began by questioning the two officers about what they had found. Officer Sperry spoke, “What I don’t understand is how Officer Hanson knew to send us here?” After the CSI had cleaned up and left Officer Sperry spoke, “Hey Ronald did CSI find any prints on the knife in Tina’s throat?” Ronald replied, “No we still don’t know who killed Tina.” Now this was the sequence we both worked out and agreed upon but what I found when she started the Campfire in her perfolio because mine wasn't correct either. This is what I found: [Introduction] Tina is pushed to the brink. What will she do to hold on? GroovyStella "What's wrong with Spencer Mommy?" Abigail asked but then ran from the room after taking one look in mommy's eyes. "Abby, what’s wrong? Christian asked softly. Did she hit you again? I'ts okay I wont tell on you!" "I wish I could help Spencer. Christian said after Abby nodded no. Why is he crying? He should listen to us and stop upsetting mommy. I hope daddy gets here soon." "I love you Spencer," she whispered in his ear as she cuddled him. Her tears flowed as she placed his body under the water in the bathtub. She used more strength than she thought she would have to. When Abby and Christian noticed the baby was quiet. Abby spoke, Christian lets go see if mommy is better now. I am hungry and I want to know everything is all right. GroovyStella Abby slowly crawled out from under her bed. She heard small noises from the bathroom, but went into the kitchen looking for a glass of water, and to wait for mommy to finish changing the babys diaper. "Abby can you come in here and help Mommy for a minute?" Tina called. "I don't know if I can do this." She whispered. A tear found its way down her cheek when Abby walked into the bathroom. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Mommy is going to help you with your bath tonight, so I need you to come in and get undressed." As Abby climbed into the tub, Tina stroked her hair and whispered, "I love you sweet girl." With that she grabbed Abby and tried to put her under, but Abby fought so hard that Tina was losing control. GroovyStella "Mommy, what are you doing? Please don't Mommy, please!" Her little girl cried. "Oh my God," Tina cried. "I can't do this!" Tina yelled while struggling with Abby. Tina held Abby still and cried, "I'm sorry Abby." As Tina slammed Abbys tiny soft brown hair covered head against the side of the tub. Christian heard Abbys scream. He was so scared all he could do was freeze. The house went silent after that. Christian heard mommy say, Its alright now Abby you no longer have to cry or be afraid anymore. Tina called out, "Christian where are you honey?" Christian cried out a soft cry as the fear froze him again! He knew he had to run to leave the house but he just couldnt move. Mommy came into the room and gently picked him up and gently placed him on Abbys bed. GroovyStella She gently stroked his soft blond hair. The look on her face kept his fear in place. "You know I love you, don't you?" She asked holding him in her lap. "And I'll always do what's best for you and your brother and sister. Do you trust me Christian?" He slowly nodded his head then asked, "Where is Spencer and Abby?"They're in my room waiting for Daddy. It's time to get you ready to go." She was thinking how much he looked like his father. His face was so sweet and innocent. She pulled him close and held him tight. "Mommy?" Christian spoke with silent tears on his face. "Shh baby, it's okay. Mommy's sorry. GroovyStella Christian let out a scream when the knife pierced his stomach and she felt her oldest child go limp and as she stood to carry his body to the bed to lay him down next to his sister, she stopped, laid him on his bed, and pierced his throat below the ear and didn't stop until she reached the other ear. Tina got Christian's blanket, wrapped him in it, and laid him next to his sister. She made her way back to the bathroom to clean her son's blood from her hands when the phone rings. Tina quickly washed her hands and ran to the phone. She had reservations, who could be calling her especially now? She built up her courage again, and quickly picked it up. She fumbled with it a few times and finally held it steady as she answered, "Hello?" A strong male voice answered, "This Sergeant Hanson with the State Patrol. I have some bad news Mrs. Hudson. I regret to inform you that your husband has died in a car accident on the way home today. Do you have a preference where the body is sent? We recommend Johnsons funeral parlor if you dont have any choice." GroovyStella Tina had no answer to come back all she could think of was Daniel was dead! The voice in her mind snapped, answer him fool or you'll give it all away! Tina found her voice and asked, "Are you sure it is Daniel?" Officer Hanson answered, "Yes mam we are." Tina spoke in a sobbing shaking voice, "Officer Hanson, Johnsons will do just fa fa fine." She began to sob uncontrollably. Officer Hanson spoke, "I'll let you go now if you need any help or have any questions you can always reach me at the state patrol number listed in the phone book mam."After saying that he hung up something just didn't feel right so he ordered a patrol car to her house. When the officers arrived there was no answer to the knock or to the doorbell. He tried the door it wasn’t locked. Officer Sperry and his partner walked in calling out for Tina. There was no answer, it was quiet. They call in and received orders to search the house since it was unlocked. Officer Sperry found her and the children in the master bedroom. Tina was dead with a knife through her neck. He backed out of the room and called into dispatch. Both officers waited downstairs for the local police to arrive as well as the crime scene investigators. Ronald Harry the detective in charge showed up first. He began by questioning the two officers about what they had found. GroovyStella Officer Sperry spoke, “What I don’t understand is how Officer Hanson knew to send us here?” After the CSI had cleaned up and left Officer Sperry spoke, “Hey Ronald did CSI find any prints on the knife in Tina’s throat?” Ronald replied, “No we still don’t know who killed Tina.” © Copyright 2013 GroovyStella, (known as GROUP). All rights reserved. GROUP has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. Your Turn! It is now your turn to add to this campfire creative. Enter your addition and then click "Save This Addition!". As you can see it is quite funny and it's my turn now to add another 1000 word story on how Tina died by a ghost or is that true? I'm still deciding on how to make it all work out. So you can see this has been an interesting week. |
[From: "Rewarding Reviewers Committee" ] For your Review of "When there is nothing to say on a topic" , which was listed on the Public Review of "When there is nothing to say on a topic" 
Sorry my funny bone kicked in. I won 25 GP which I thought was funny. Combined with the 75 they were paying for reviews it makes it an even 100 GP to 200 WDC paid me for a grand total of 300 GPs. not bad for a ten line poem. The funny part that gave me the chuckle was they sent the 25 GP Anonymous. It just struck me as funny. For the first time spending 30k GP I can sure use every GP' I can get. It took a lot of reviewing to earn that 30k so I'll be busy earning it back. Every GP I get, even Anonymous is that many less reviewing I have to do. lol. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** The Run-on King PDG Member |
| I need to answer two questions here for a favorite person just because she asked. How did I find WDC? Well actuall how my WDC adventure began when I wrote 108,000 word novel or book as I like to call them. I have always had a goal to develop an online game with all the fun put back in it, that blizzard had removed from World of Warcraft. I got serious and worked for two months solid, and wrote 38 chapters of newbie errors and run-ons going from place to place I could envision each area I wrote about. But I'm afraid I don't think I put in enough description for any reader to figure it out. I asked all my friends and family for help reviewing it. Everyone said they liked it. But no real help on fixing it up to be a professional work. The only solid thing I knew was that I would grab them in on the first chapter. There was nothing on the second and third chapters. I finally realized no one wanted to hurt my feelings. I learned the hard way that friends and family are scared to hurt your feelings. So now what how can I get the help I really need to get that first draft into a professional published work. I went to Google and typed in writing and started checking out websites. About third on the list was writing.com. So I clicked on it got my free account and started in writing contests. Then the Newbie academy took me under their wings. They told me to get better at writing was to review, review, and review. I reviewed a story from Bonny and she in return reviewed my road kill story. I now to date have received 13 reviews on it. Her review from the Paper Doll Gang was the best one I had ever seen. It was a god send. I re-edited it and the edited story is what is at my port. I had so much fun with that story that I started doing more reviewing. I was doing a lot of heavy reviews now. I was doing whole book chapters people needed to get reviews for. Since I was a newbie I only did newbies. I did one that looked exactly what I had written misspelling and run-ons to boot. I got them done both chapters I got reviewed on those two chapters by The Talent pool and From PatrickB with the Art of Criticizing. I joined both groups. I realized if I wanted some writer to edit my poor writing and find all my boo-boos it was a lot to ask. Even I was a bit put out editing two 2,500 word chapters. If I wanted this help I was going to have to earn it. About that time I had finished my second book in the series. Now I have two over 100,000 word books to edit. So I took a cooling off period and did Nano and continued learning on my own how to do punctuation on complex sentences. Also I learned to do the same thing I tell people in the reviews, to read it out loud before pressing save. I have now started looking around this site looking for a few friends that I could swap reviews with. When Bonny out of the blue offers me the invite into the Paper Dawg or Dragon Gang. I have to complete their navigation training. I take one day and finish it. Now I move on to the playground where we have seven more challenges to do the last being a camp fire. I am working with GroovyStella on it now. I am still reviewing I try and kick out three a day one for each group. The Newbie Academy mentor has challenged me to do poetry along with stories. I found when I did the the large story chapters, I once had one review run over 6,000 words. Now on a 20 line poem some times your stumbling for things to say. I never used to worry about the word content as long as it was over 250 words. Now I seem to incur the wrath of our group leader if I go under 1,500 words in my reviews. I don't like to just rubber stamp my items with good job or your awesome, I tell the truth and from a readers point of view. If I have a n/a item you never see it on my forms, because I'll remove it and take a word hit rather than cookie cutter a review to anyone, with hard work needing a review. I have never liked a cookie cutter review. I refuse to give anyone a cookie cutter review. I tailor my reviews to the authors work. If I say good job I mean it and not just for fill-in. Now you know the second part of how I meet up with PDG. It was through Bonny she gets all the blame. (Just kidding Bonny.) I wanted to be part of the Paper Dragon Gang and help other aspiring authors with their work. |
| Dear blog. Today I learned that some of my trusted repair programs. That I thought I could trust was just creating junk files on my hard. They do it as a scam to justify why I should keep on renewing it. I mean come on, I only visit one or two websites, writing.com and Netflicks.com. It started out detecting 20,000 files, today it found 298,789 before I stopped it. Each day I run it the files increase until today it killed my system. Good thing I store everything on an USB portable drive, even my windows install CD. And to think just because this business claims to be a Microsoft Partner, doesn’t give them the right to prey on us people like Microsoft does. Have you ever wondered who the Microsoft beta testers were? I’ll give you a hint, go look in the mirror. My love for Microslop started back during my Packard Bell days doing tech support. I started fighting windows 3.11 and DOS 6.2. Then the Great Windows 95 came out, next we were gearing up for Windows 98. Packard Bell was a Microsoft partner, so we all got a copy of Windows 98 to study and learn how to fix it. That copy was pre 98 and was time bombed to die on Dec 31, 1997. After I got tired of running my clock wrong I thought what a great idea to buy me a legal copy of 98. The preview copy had never crashed or gave me one minute of problems. After I installed the new version of Windows 98, my computer started crashing once a month nothing worked right. I lost more data and family pictures then Win 95 ever did. They came out with a B version of 98. They came out with the transition version that the last update to it latterly will crash it to force you to buy XP. Now I started to understand Microslop’s market plan. They gave the techs the best copy so we would brag it up. Then they sold the public something way below the best version just so they could sell us upgrades. Remember that old saying “Let the Buyer beware.” I feel that Microslop took advantage of us all. I truly believe they with some of their poor business practice caused more piracy than any other reason. People started feeling cheated and the ones they squashed were out for revenge. Since nothing Microslop did was out right illegal. Some of it was unethical, but not illegal. So I now have learned I cannot trust anything to do with Microsoft. You would think they would learn the lessons that supporting anything unethical isn’t appreciated in the computing community. I truly am looking into developing my own operating system that doesn’t have such poor programming, bad market practices, and actually works right the first time. One of the Microsoft jokes I love is what is the difference between windows and a virus? The virus works right the first time, windows doesn’t. I am going to say that XP didn’t have half the problems that Vista and Seven is experiencing. Microsoft is so concerned you’re going to return the screwing they gave you by pirating windows. That they intentionally cripple the program a good example is what happened to me I upgraded from XP to Windows seven, then I up graded my motherboard to an eight core processor instead on my quad core. Windows seven freaked out. I had to re-install it and now I’m stuck running an unlicensed version, because of all the issues of re-installing it. They locked out the number so I either buy another windows license or upgrade to windows eight. This type of software locking out looks to me, like another unethical way to force me to buy another operating system. I really don’t need windows eight. I am so tempted to just go back to XP, and say shove it Microslop. I have paid you enough for non working software. The only reason I don’t re-install is the same reason we all hate computer crashes, I lose all my favorites and passwords and configurations. I am not looking to re-install all my games and programming software. So I suffer with it. I just hate the way some of the software companies are using the trust people put in Microslop. What happens when trusted programs are not a trusted solution to windows bad practice of corrupting the register, bad links, and fragmenting. The good news is I can delete this program and use other more trusted programs to fix this piece of junk. The really sad part of all of this is how many of us really trust Microsoft and their partners. I still am half tempted to totally switch to Linux and write my own software for it. This is how tired of being screwed by Microsoft I really am. |
| I am beginning to respect the Paper Dragon Gang or Paper Doll Gang.I went through their WDC sight navagation course and learned a few things I didn't know. Not every link item is a bitem thinks like a book or this blog are a b-item instead. the b- means book item where the b iten just mean a big static page. I struggled longer trying to get my blog link to post correctly then it took me to create it. If you think about it it was pretty funny and of course they don't have a blog link in the Writing ML help either. I just happened to remember that when I was first learning to link items someone used the {b-item} so I tried it and bingo it worked. Now for the rest of all the fun I had. I tried my hand at a guest page. My first attempt was pretty sad, I couldn't get it right. My ability to put text and images together really suck now days. But in the end I think I figured out just what the ladies wanted me to do. I want to share my interests and my newly created family with you.
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